Over 70s to self isolate

[Dodie66]

Over 70s are going to be told to self isolate even if they don’t have the virus and this will be coming in 5-20 days and last 4 months
www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-coronavirus-over-70s-told-21694397?fbclid=IwAR2k9MqPf7vOzNcnqfVroLXVp0sQjYRmihHKBiL9pvdhSi5780WpYkgFNnI

@Lincolnfield and let’s hope there is a bed available and staff there to give palliative care. You are making big assumptions. For somebody who says they care so much that is surprising.

As a very fit over 70 who has survived cancer 5 years ago with no lasting effects,i didnt need chemo.I am really getting very angry with some of the renarks on here.How dare you talk about over 70s as though they are a different race,And the remark "ive seen lots f over 70s out and about"How do you know they are over 70, many people in 60s or even late 50s look older than me. In China many healthy older people survived the virus,so will be same here.

What our useless government is worried about is the fact this will show how they have ruined the NHS with their cuts,thats all that concerns them.

Stop patronising your parents or any older people,we dont like it and we dont want it,ill make decisions about my life,not Boris Johnson.

@Lincolnfield and by the way what I find most surprising is the assumption I don’t want to help. I wouldn’t be on here writing if I didn’t care. My elderly parents are already isolated and cared for. I am my immediate family are not in the at risk group. I could just walk away and say you know what I’m alright Jack. But I am fearful for our health services and doctors and nurses and our most vulnerable. But you know what I won’t bother anymore if it means I get accused of not helping or caring. I could just pop off and look after ourselves.

@JFM27 I find your attitude extraordinary. We care and are trying to protect the over 70s who are statistically more likely to need help. Honestly I give up. We’re clearly all on our own. Good luck.

@JFM27 and do you think I care at all how our government looks at the end of this. I really don’t care. I care about the individuals that are going to go through this. The young medical professionals who are going to die. The people who are going to die a slow death with no care. Call me scaremongering but let’s all come back here in 3 months and see. If you don’t educate yourselves on what is happening on the frontline in Italy and Spain at the moment then more fool you.

Oh for goodness' sakes it's not patronising, the numbers speak for themselves. People in their 70s have a 10% chance of death if they catch coronavirus. I find my parents' blasé attitude to this incredibly selfish. Who do they think will look after them if they can't get out of bed? Who do they think will be there at the hospital with them if they can't breathe? It's the rest of the family that will be affected by this.

This is what we face.

Should have said this is the Italian responsible for coordinating ITU care across Italy talking about how they are coping and the decisions they have to about who they can help.

And here are some Italians giving us a message to themselves 10 days ago. This is their warning to us. Take it or leave it.

m.youtube.com/watch?feature=emb_title&v=o_cImRzKXOs&time_continue=202

@123bananas I am being accused of ‘scaremongering’. How can anyone not watch that video and start thinking how they can help themselves and others now. We have a window. Grab it.

I hope they are as equally blunt as they were before so people will realise they have to listen.

I know @Bool, it is here already.

UK hospital ITU's were already running at pretty much full capacity and have been all winter due to usual winter pressures. There is no capacity for a large number of people needing intensive care support.

Hospitals in the UK are scrambling to create extra beds and possible extra areas for ventilatory support in now unused operating theatres. We need to slow the spread into the age groups most likely to need critical care otherwise many tough decisions on who will get those ITU beds will be taken and people who may have been able to be helped if there was a bed might die.

We could quickly get to a situation as in Italy where they have to refuse care over a certain age.

If that is too much to hear then it’s better to just hear it now than realise it later.

@Lincolnfield here is a link to a postcard people are using to put through people’s letter boxes if they need help self isolating. Take care.

www.sudburymercury.co.uk/news/viral-kindness-postcard-idea-being-taken-up-in-suffokl-1-6562218

@123bananas fully agree. I do hope some of the elderly are already self isolating or at least cutting down contact and not waiting for the government to force them. We need to buy time. We need to dampen the curve. To set up hotels as hospital. To get the beds in. And most importantly get the ventilators manufactured. Let’s hope we can turn car factories into ventilator producers.

We still need healthcare staff to care for those patients. Healthcare staff need personal protective equipment training and supplies to help prevent them falling ill. Pictures and videos of nurses and doctors in Italy show them completely exhausted with some not being able to use the toilet for a whole shift due to lack of equipment meaning they stay in their PPE all shift. If you read the NHS staff thread on the Corona board many trusts have not got enough PPE to protect key staff.

Also childcare, the majority of nurses are women and many shoulder the majority of the childcare. If schools close and childminders shut who looks after the children? The grandparents who are most at risk?

Countries like Italy are heavily dependent on hospital and clinic based care. Here in the UK we have community resources - stretched admittedly - but far more than other European countries. We have district nurses, Macmillian nurses, Marie Curie nurses all who deliver care at the patient’s home.

I did some community critical care nursing myself at one time so this leap to all the dying needing a hospital bed or clinic based care makes no sense.

I nursed four terminally ill cancer patients all in their own homes. One of whom had terminal lung cancer. He did not want to be hospitalised and we formulated a plan to manage his pain and, yes, his breathing difficulties without ventilation and by providing the medication to support his final days.

My own mother died of bone cancer which metastasised into her lungs. We nursed her at home with the help of a syringe driver to provide measured doses of morphine to her. She lapsed into unconsciousness and died peacefully in her own bed. The only NHS resource was the supply of the syringe driver and the drug plus support from a wonderful MacMillan nurse.

I reiterate that the amount of scaremongering going on is the frightening aspect of all of this.

@Bool in all our disagreement I forgot to say thank you. If you are doing what you have said locally for your elderly neighbours then you are to be applauded.

You also ask what I’m doing? Today I’m delivering training to young doctors in palliative care. 🙂

Maybe Boris & Co. (and the "experts")should just by-pass all the protocols and have the army roaming the streets painting red crosses on our doors and boarding up the windows.....

PS: What on earth constitutes an "expert"? In the past I've witnessed too many of these supposedly qualified types do a u-turn when it suits them!

@lincolnfield that sounds great! I really hope you are right re the services here vs Italy. If it is as you say then we have some hope. But I am sceptical we are going to be able to cope. I think some people need to hear the reality of this to be induced to take this seriously and protect themselves and the healthcare system. We cannot lull people into a false sense of security. This is unprecedented. We are not ready for this. No country is ready for this. So we need to protect ourselves from this virus in the meantime to slow it down while we organise ourselves. As @123bananas says - we need equipment - safety suits, protective gear as well as the breathing apparatus. Let’s slow this down to let us get ready for the onslaught. We cannot stop this spreading through our population so we need it to go as slowly as we can.

@ralfeesmum this is an expert. Read this paper. Written by our Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty who managed the Ebola Crisis 2013-16. Enjoy!

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5394633/

I found that video very interesting because what he said was decisions to ventilate or not were being made on the basis of biological age and those with the best chance of recovery got the resources. That could easily include fit over 70s with no pre existing conditions.

Of course anyone who is diagnosed with this will get care, even if it’s only palliative, that’s why private hospital beds are being purchased and hotel rooms are part of the plan. You can’t ventilate a patient in a hotel room so they’ll be to make those who need nursing care comfortable.

@alsohuman. He also said the average age of needing hospital treatment is 65. That is the average age. So half of the people younger and half older. So when decisions are made you can take your chance if you are over 65. But if decisions are made on biological age I would be wanting to take that change if I were above average.

*wouldn’t

But I am happy everybody seems so relaxed.